Zuckerberg's Second Law

http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2008/11/zuckerbergs_sec.php

by razorburn • 18 years ago

18 40 18 years ago

roughtype.com

kwamenum862• 18 years ago

Sounds like a 24 year old to me.

time_management7• 18 years ago

As a 25-year-old, I'm insulted by this comment.

kwamenum862• 18 years ago

I am 23

time_management7• 18 years ago

Shall no fart pass without a tweet?

If you have Zuckerberg luck (henceforth known as "Zuckluck")-- the kind of +5 sigma noise that can only befall mediocre talent-- you can sell a rightly-placed fart for billions of dollars.

dustineichler2• 18 years ago

I'm not sure why I understand the hate on this guy. He put one foot in front of the other and made something for himself. Who doesn't want that...?

hugh• 18 years ago

Unfortunately he just seems to be a twat. I'm not sure exactly what it is about him, but his personality as revealed by his words, body language and attitude just strike the rest of the world as undeniably twattish.

In an alternative universe, Mark Zuckerberg is working as a junior analyst for some large company, and his workmates think he's a bit of a twat. In this universe, he's the CEO of a billion-dollar company and everybody still thinks he's a twat.

time_management7• 18 years ago

This is the best explanation I can come up with: Due to the nature of the market, there had to be one winner in that particular social networking space, and it turned out to be a completely mediocre choice. Facebook had superior competitors who lost because they didn't start at Harvard, and for literally no other reason.

Zuckerberg, to our generation, is emblematic of the successful mediocrity (not a contradiction)-- often the annoying, arrogant suckup who gets into good schools by doing a hundred extracurriculars not very well, the one who gets ahead by exploiting the system. This ties in well to the fact that the absolute only reason any of us have heard of Facebook (originally thefacebook... :vomit:) is that it started at Harvard and was able to use prestige at each level of market growth (first Harvard, then the Ivy League, then the top ~150 colleges...) to progress to the next. It makes him a symbol of the Elite College Mediocrity (ECM), an archetype that all of us hate. Those of us who went to top colleges will never forgive the ECMs for the damage they did to our college experience. Those who didn't go to top colleges despise ECMs because the ECMs have more competitive resumes and stronger rolodexes for no good reason.

Zuckerberg's not an ECM at all, actually, since he's quite bright compared to the average person and even the average student at Harvard. He is, however, an utter incompetent compared to level of success and prominence to which he has been lifted by the sheer dumb force of +5 sigma luck.

He also gave a talk at Startup School 2007 that was absolutely terrible. In fact, it was so awful as to raise suspicions of sabotage.

thomasmallen2• 18 years ago

I don't know about you guys, but I'm fairly convinced that he stole the idea for Facebook. I admired him before that revelation, and he's done nothing since to regain my admiration.

alaskamiller• 18 years ago

I think it's sad that some of you commenting in this thread want to engage in tech gossip with little factual information.

dustineichler2• 18 years ago

I'd like to point out, his success is good for everyone in the valley. He succeeds, you all succeed, but that goes for any entrepreneur... who cares about anything else otherwise.

apsurd• 18 years ago

Though I must admit I HAVE NOT being inside zuckerburgs anus day in and day out so I can't judge the guy; I must say that from outside looking in, we have to respect what he's done.

Sure its easy to criticize but its a very simple fact that he had the vision/balls to make pretty bold moves and have them pay off.

How many of you guys can honestly say you could run that big of a company as CEO mind you. Not just some tech guy, some programmer but as C.E.O. AND programmer I have to respect him for that. He has made pretty swift and successful business moves which can't be said for a lot of startups.

Who would turn down 1 billion dollars, only to be valued at 10 times that later? Did we all forget about the success of the facebook api?

It is ironic that I am defending the guy, because I never went to college, so when fb was happening and all my peers were using it - I couldn't .And I do remember the douch-ness of his "a mark zuckerburg production" copyright details coupled with a logo that had HIM IN IT - but that is besides the point.

omouse2• 18 years ago

Value != REAL money.

Haskell• 18 years ago

At least in P2P networks, sharing is going down.

http://www.evidenzia.de/eng_stats_all_releases_line.html

jonmc12• 18 years ago

For the 'law' to be stated equivalently to Moore's law it should state: 1) the rate at which consumers will be able to organize their information, for a given cost, will double every year, or 2) the rate at which facebook will be able to evaluate a quantity of information, at a given cost, will double every year.

The percentage of information consumers choose to share is more of a question of market adoption.

SwellJoe• 18 years ago

Personally, I think the "Zuckerberg Curve" was Zuckerberg's First Law. That guy makes a lot of laws.

http://www.killnine.com/comics/25.php

Zuckerberg's Second Law

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